Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Monday, August 15, 2022

Book Review: Dragons of Deceit: Dragonlance Destinies: Volume 1

 


+++Warning, this review contains spoilers from the Chronicles and Legends series of novels. If you have not read those books yet, proceed at your own risk.+++

Dragons of Deceit is the latest novel that Weiss and Hickman have written in the Dragonlance universe and the first since 2009 with the final entry of the Lost Chronicles trilogy. Of course, the Dragonlance universe started with their first novel published in 1984, Dragons of the Autumn Twilight, the events of which tie heavily into this book, which was a part of the Chronicles trilogy of novels and then followed up with the Legends trilogy. From there, a couple hundred or so novels set in the Dragonlance universe have been written over the years with Weiss and Hickman returning every so often to pen new novels and/or trilogies.

This book spans multiple years, with the story beginning during the War of the Lance, and the bulk of it happening after the events of the Legends Trilogy. The main crux of the story is that the daughter of a Solmanic knight named Destina Rosethorn loses everything when her father is killed in the battle of the High Clerist Tower. She is desperate for a way to prevent his death and finds a magic user who convinces her that there is a way she can save her father. She first has to find two artifacts, one that will require her to travel to the dwarven kingdom of Thorbidan, and one that will require her to track down a Kender named Taselhoff Burrfoot. I will not spoil the exact plot, but there are ties into the other novels, especially Dragons of the Autumn Twilight and Dragons of the Winter Night, as well as loose tie-ins to the Chaos War novels. Several characters from the original Dragonlance novels appear in this book to varying degrees. Obviously, Taselhoff is one of the main characters, but Tika and Carmen are prominently featured, as is Dalamar. There is a larger end-of-the-world threat that only some of the characters are aware of, and it is fairly clear that more characters from the original series of books will be appearing in the later novels, including those who died during the Chronicles and Legends books. The book does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger that points to where the story is going.

If you are a fan of Dragonlance, this is a must-read (as I would classify all of the Weiss-Hickman novels). They do a great job returning to the beloved characters without missing a beat. They also do a great job developing Destina as a character and providing her motivation before leaning heavily on the legacy characters. Therefore, it does not feel like she was just shoehorned into an existing story. Hers is an extension of the prior stories. The authors do a great job of setting up the larger story that will be told in the two remaining books of the new trilogy without giving too much away. It is a moderate length (just under 400 pages) but reads fairly quickly. So, if you are a fan of the Dragonlance universe of novels, definitely pick this one up.

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